3D Realms seeking crowdfunding to get back into first-person shooters

Earth No More project revived on new "player-equity" site Gambitious.

After over a decade of work on Duke Nukem Forever ended with the unceremonious firing of the game's development team (and a critically panned release under replacement developer Gearbox), it appears that storied PC developer 3D Realms has finished licking its wounds. The company is gearing up to get back into the first-person shooter game, seeking crowdfunding to revive a previously shuttered project called Earth No More.

3D Realms had been working on Earth No More with Finnish developer Recoil Games (known for side-scrolling shooter Rochard) since the game was announced way back in 2007. The game, which focuses on a small band of humans struggling to survive after an environmental apocalypse, even had a release date set in 2009 before being put on hold later that year, amid a copyright infringement lawsuit over the concept.

While 3D Realms revived the project back in June, the under-the-radar effort wasn't widely noticed until today with the official launch of Gambitious, a new game-focused crowdfunding site. Gambitious differs from similar efforts like Kickstarter by letting investors have a small equity stake in the eventual profits of a game, providing them with more incentive to ensure success of the efforts (though current SEC rules currently prevent US citizens from taking part in such profit-sharing). 3D Realms founder Scott Miller sits on the advisory board for Gambitious, and says he sees the site as a brave new model for the game industry. "Why just donate to projects when you can become an owner? The game industry just got a lot more interesting."

3D Realms hasn't actually started accepting donations for Earth No More on the site just yet, but gamers eager to see the company come back can follow the project on the site to stay up to date on its progress.

Kyle Orland
Kyle is the Senior Gaming Editor at Ars Technica, specializing in video game hardware and software. He has journalism and computer science degrees from University of Maryland. He is based in the Washington, DC area. Emailkyle.orland@arstechnica.com//Twitter@KyleOrl

Making a good FPS in the early 90s and almost nothing since doesn't exactly scream worthy crowd-funding material, if they ever get around to putting this up on Gambitious. If they couldn't get a decent product out the door for almost 20 years with several major big-name investors backing them, why should we think they'll do any better with a lot of tiny-stakes investors?

*psst* Critically panned release. Nothing about it was very "planned."

You have GOT to be shitting me. 3D Realms mis-managed one of the hottest gaming titles of the past decade... well the prior decade anyway, and their name is now synonymous with the term "vaporware". And they want the public to fund their future endeavors? Hahahahahahahah!

So what happened to the copyright infringement lawsuit? I cant find any further references to it, so I assume the allegations were true and 3DR quietly paid out.

Let's sum up - 3D Realms, the company that spend 12 years developing a game they eventually could not finish, wants you to fund an idea that they stole from a company that first pitched it in 2006, then started development with another company, then canned, and now wants to do again. That sounds like a marvelous opportunity.

Also is George Broussard involved in this one? He was the cause for DNF being what it was.

While the 3D Realms thing is meh, this Gambitious idea sounds intriguing.

Agreed, this model could produce some very interesting results in the industry. Regarding 3D Realms though, if it weren't so well documented how badly they managed DNF and how the fruitless pursuit of perfection hobbled the project for so long, they might be able to run off their past merits to gain support. I'd be shocked if that were to happen though.

A company isn't an entity itself. A company is made up of people. I'm assuming 3D Realms has either zero or near zero employees at the moment, so who the hell is 3D Realms? Is this just Scott Miller and George Broussard trying to get funding to start a new project?

I can't think of a worse gaming crowd fund pitch. Even that chubby guy who basically was trying to kickstarter J.R.R. Tolkein's World of Final Dark Dragon May Cry: Ocarina of Silence despite not having any computer background nor anyone else working with him was a safer bet to put your money on.

Gambitious differs from similar efforts like Kickstarter by letting investors have a small equity stake in the eventual profits of a game, providing them with more incentive to ensure success of the efforts (though current SEC rules currently prevent US citizens from taking part in such profit-sharing).

[chuckle] So part of the premise is broken right off the bat. You can invest in the games!*

*Investing not allowed for US citizens.

Gotta agree with the rest of the comments, 3D Realms has the reputation for burning through money, then failing completely. Exact opposite of the sort of promising, small developer that crowdfunding is aimed at.